The best Quotes by Flannery O'Connor

There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal.

Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.

I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.

A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone.

"One must always be careful of books," said Tessa, "and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us."

If you have never spent whole afternoons with burning ears and rumpled hair, forgetting the world around you over a book, forgetting cold and hunger-

If you have never read secretly under the bedclothes with a flashlight, because your father or mother or some other well-meaning person has switched off the lamp on the plausible ground that it was time to sleep because you had to get up so early-

If you have never wept bitter tears because a wonderful story has come to an end and you must take your leave of the characters with whom you have shared so many adventures, whom you have loved and admired, for whom you have hoped and feared, and without whose company life seems empty and meaningless-

If such things have not been part of your own experience, you probably won't understand what Bastian did next.

I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.

If you don't like to read you haven't found the right book.

Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.

Few things leave a deeper mark on the reader, than the first book that finds its way to his heart.

Never memorize what you can look up in books.

Jeod: "Books are my friends, my companions. They make me laugh and cry and find meaning in life."

I'm sorry, but how can one possibly pay attention to a book with no pictures in it?

Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.

One should never underestimate the power of books.

Books are a uniquely portable magic.

Lies are comforting. Truth is painful.

Truth never wins, but its enemies cease to exist.

Plato is my friend; Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth.

Which is worse: A lie that draws a smile or a truth that draws a tear?

The ugliest truth, in the end, was still better than the prettiest of lies.

Guzmán: "Because she supports me. Unconditionally."
Nadia: "That isn't love, it's devotion, like you would have for a God. People who love you tell you the truth."

Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.

The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.

Ian Malcolm: "I told the truth."
Peter Ludlow: "Your version of it."
Ian Malcolm: "There are no versions of the truth."

Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth!

I didn't realize how destructive the truth could be.

The truth is always there, whether we see it or not - whether we choose to or not. The truth doesn't care about our needs or wants. It doesn't care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions.

When the truth offends me, we lie and we lie until we can no longer remember it is even there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid.

People live their lives bound by what they accept as correct and true. That's how they define reality. But what does it mean to be correct or true? Merely vague concepts. Their reality may all be a mirage. Can we consider them to simply be living in their own world, shaped by their beliefs?

I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal.

Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure it was real? What if you were unable to awake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world, and the real world?

That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.

Reality is the stillness buried deep beneath the illusion.

Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.

Reality is something you rise above.

Reality is hard. It is no walk in the park, this thing called Life.

We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories.

In reality, the least interesting answer is usually the correct one.

There are dreamers and there are realists in this world. You'd think the dreamers would find the dreamers and the realists would find the realists, but more often than not the opposite is true. You see, the dreamers need the realists to keep them from soaring too close to the sun. And the realists, well without the dreamers, they might not ever get off the ground.

One candidate is too old and mentally unfit to be president. The other one is me.

What do you call an Asian Dwayne Johnson?
The Wok.

I'm paranoid. On my stationary bike, I have a rear view mirror.

When you're in love it's the most glorious two and a half days of your life.

I quit therapy because my analyst was trying to help me behind my back.

I tried phone sex - it gave me an ear infection.